


I'll Show You It Hurts

by sxldato



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Awkward Tension, Comforting Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Gabriel (Supernatural), because gabriel tortured sam it's not sexual tension, tbh it's only sabriel if you really want it to be sabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sxldato/pseuds/sxldato
Summary: 13.17 coda. Sam helps Gabriel clean up.





	I'll Show You It Hurts

**Author's Note:**

> written for the Torture bingo square  
> i'm really excited for gabriel to be back, i think it'll give sam a lot of good development that we've been missing this season but no tea no shade [coughs] anyways

Sam ushered Gabriel into the closest bathroom, leaving the door open so Gabriel wouldn’t feel trapped. He had Gabriel sit on the lid of the toilet while he ran water for a bath. If Sam knew what returning from Hell was like, and he liked to think he did, half the battle was feeling like you’d gotten the stink of it off of you. It had taken Sam a long time and a lot of hot water to get there. 

“You’re safe here,” Sam said. He pushed up the cuff of his sleeve and tested the water; warm, but not too hot. “It’s probably hard to believe– I wasn’t sure for a while, too– but you are.”

Gabriel watched his movements with the eyes of a feral animal, but Sam was sure that Gabriel recognized him. Gabriel hadn’t lashed out when he’d come near him with a scalpel to cut the stitches in his mouth; he’d sat there with a striking amount of obedience, no muffled screaming, no thrashing. 

“You remember me.” Sam didn’t phrase it as a question. 

Gabriel nodded. Sam counted it as progress. 

He eased Gabriel out of his rags, careful of the open wounds decorating his body, and helped Gabriel into the tub. Gabriel instantly dirtied the water with all the blood caked on his skin. Sam caught the slightest bit of relief cross Gabriel’s face as he sunk into the water. 

“Do you remember Dean?” Sam asked. He offered Gabriel a washcloth, not wanting to touch Gabriel unless Gabriel made it clear it was what he wanted. 

Gabriel nodded again and accepted the washcloth. 

“And Cas?” 

Another nod. The water was stained pink. Sam handed Gabriel the bar of soap and searched for the right thing to say. It wasn’t every day that you were made the caretaker of a tortured archangel– an archangel whose torture you suffered, too. 

“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Sam told him. 

Gabriel stopped washing himself and glanced at Sam beneath his dirty hair as if to say, no you aren’t. 

But Sam had been where Gabriel was now. He knew what it was like. 

“You hurt me,” Sam said. “Those months I thought Dean was gone were some of the worst of my life, and you made that happen.” 

Gabriel didn’t avert his gaze. He waited for what Sam would say next. 

“I don’t… I don’t think I forgive you for that,” Sam admitted. “But I think you can understand why, now.” 

Sam didn’t take any satisfaction from this, from witnessing the torturer become the tortured. What Gabriel did was sick and cruel, but it didn’t make Sam wish the same on him. At any rate, in the scope of Sam’s suffering, it paled in comparison to the atrocities that Gabriel’s brother had inflicted on him. Gabriel gave him months of grief and damaged his grasp on reality. Lucifer had him on the rack for centuries, burning through him over and over, flaying his soul, bleeding him dry and then starting again from the beginning. They weren’t comparable. 

“I’m not angry,” Sam said. “It’s been a long time, and holding onto grudges like that… I can’t do it anymore.”

He looked at Gabriel’s body, the blood and the bruises, the carnage of it all. It was all so familiar. 

“Can I help you clean up?” 

Gabriel nodded. Sam took the washcloth from him and ran it down his back; he could make out each individual vertebra of Gabriel’s spine. He wondered if he had been just as thin, fresh out of Hell with the wall in his head crumbling. 

Gabriel’s hair was so dirty that the shampoo didn’t foam when Sam rubbed it in. Sam ran fresh water from the tub faucet and cupped it in his hands, pouring it over Gabriel’s head to wash away the suds. Gabriel didn’t flinch, didn’t try to move away. His eyes fluttered closed when Sam started the second round of shampoo. He may have been calmer around Sam than Dean or Ketch, but Gabriel had still never once let his guard down until now. 

Once Gabriel was clean, Sam wrapped him in a towel and guided him back to his room. This wasn’t the first time an angel took up residence in Sam’s room, and Sam doubted it would be the last. At least this time it was Sam’s choice. 

Sam set out some clothes, ones that would be gentle and comfortable. Gabriel dressed himself for the most part; Sam had to help with the buttons of the shirt. His sweatpants and flannel were comically big on Gabriel, so he rolled up the sleeves and folded up the legs of the pants. It was oddly akin to dressing a child. 

The entire situation was odd. Not traumatic like Lucifer’s arrival had been. Just odd. Gabriel looked more himself now that he was cleaned up, and it had Sam remembering when he was twenty-six and the world was ending. 

“Cas will be here soon,” Sam said. “There’s a lot to catch up on.” He trailed off. “If you want to talk about, you know–” 

“Not yet,” Gabriel said, voice hoarse and croaky from disuse . His eyes were focused on something Sam couldn’t see.

“Okay. You don’t have to.” Although Sam knew that Gabriel would probably have to, at some point. 

“Dean left you here with me.” 

A knot formed in Sam’s stomach. “Yeah.” 

“Got the short end of the stick, huh.” 

Sam thought he saw a shadow of a smile on the corners of Gabriel’s mouth, but it might have been a trick of the light. 

“I wouldn’t say that,” Sam said. “I just… Dean going off on his own, it always makes me a little anxious.”

“You two haven’t changed.” 

Sam shrugged. “Guess not.” 

Gabriel fidgeted with the cuff of Sam’s shirt. Dirt and blood lingered under his fingernails.

“What I did to you,” Gabriel said. “All those years ago… It was a real dick move. And I’m sorry.”

Sam could count the amount of apologies he’d received in his lifetime on one hand, and this had not been one he’d expected to add to the list.

“Um,” he faltered. “Thank you. I… I appreciate that.”

The dull grating of the front door opening echoed through the bunker, and Gabriel immediately tensed up. 

“It’s just Cas,” Sam said. “It’s alright.” 

Gabriel looked doubtful, but his posture relaxed a bit. 

“C’mon.” Sam stepped out into the hallway. “We have a lot to talk about.”


End file.
